Khutba on Halal Certification
الحمد لله، الحمد لله الذي أحل الطيبات، وحرّم الخبيثات، نحمده تعالى ونستعينه، ونشكره تعالى ونستغفره ونستغيثه، نعوذ بالله من شرور أنفسنا ومن سيئات أعمالنا، من يهد الله فهو المهتد ومن يضلل فلن تجد له وليا مرشدا، ونشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له، له الملك و له الحمد، يحيي ويميت، بيده الخير، وهو على كل شيء قدير، ونشهد أن سيدنا و مولانا محمداً عبده ورسوله، وحبيبه وصفيه، بلغ الرسالة وأدى الأمانة ونصح الأمة، النبي الأمي الذي أرسله الله بالهدى والدين الحق، بشيرا ونذيرا بين يدي الساعة، صلى الله عليه وسلم وعلى آله وأصحابه ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين.
أما بعد! فيا عباد الله اتقوا الله حق تقاته ولا تموتن إلا وأنتم مسلمون. يأيها الذين ءامنوا اتقوا الله وقولوا قولا سديدا يصلح لكم أعمالكم ويغفر لكم ذنوبكم. ومن يطع
الله ورسوله فقد فاز فوزا عظيما. اتقوا الله فيما أمر وانتهوا عما نها عنه وزجر.
قال الله تعالى في كتابه الكريم: يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آَمَنُوا كُلُوا مِنْ طَيِّبَاتِ مَا رَزَقْنَاكُمْ
Allah says in His Noble Book, the translation of which is, “You who have iman, eat of the good things We have provided for you.”
And the Prophet said,
رُبَّ أشعثٍ أغبرَ مشرّدٍ في الأسفار مطعمُه حرام وغُذِيَ بالحرام، يرفع يديه فيقول: يارب، يارب فأَنَّى يُستجابُ لذلك
“Perhaps a man dishevelled and dusty after a long journey, will raise his hands to the sky and say: ‘O Lord! 0 Lord!’ .. but his food is haram, and he has been nourished with haram, so how can his prayers be answered?”
Muslims, knowledge of what is halal and what is haram – what Allah has permitted us and what He has forbidden us – is fundamental to the life of every Muslim and is the heart of the Deen, as obedience to Him and His Messenger would be impossible without such knowledge. These two terms are connected to every aspect of our lives – transactions, clothing, relationships, but most especially to what we eat and drink. And it is that that brings me to the topic of today’s khutba: the halal stamp or halal certificate which has taken the Muslim world by storm in the past decade and has become big, big business. Indeed, according to the International Market Bureau of Canada, the halal stamp is worth over $560-billion annually, and according to some local newspaper reports, tens of millions of rands here in South Africa.
Now, I am sure that those who implemented and pioneered this process of certifying products and foods as halal did so with honourable intentions, seeking to make things easier for the Muslim consumer and allay his doubts as to the permissibility of the food that he was buying and eating, but there are clear negative consequences that have arisen from it.
Firstly, the implication of one product being marked halal is that everything that is not marked halal is haram – so people will not buy meat, chicken, or chocolate or anything else unless they see the stamp. And, indeed, many of the bodies who issue stamps encourage this view.
For example, SANHA – the South African National Halaal Authority – stipulates the following conditions, among others, for businesses that want to obtain their halal certificate:
“Only Halaal food and beverages approved by SANHA are to be served, sold, stored and or processed on the approved premises.” And:
“In the event of private purchases by stores, this will be permitted only from suppliers who have been explicitly approved by SANHA.”
Hence, they make all things haram or forbidden, except for what they have declared halal. This is the complete opposite of one of the central principles of fiqh – that everything is halal unless there is proof that it is are haram, and moreover, flies directly in the face of of Allah’s Words:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آَمَنُوا لَا تُحَرِّمُوا طَيِّبَاتِ مَا أَحَلَّ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ
the translation of which is, “You who have iman! do not make haram the good things Allah has made halal for you.” Allah is the only One who decides what is halal and what is haram, not us. And what is halal with Allah is much broader than you might think and much wider than they would have you believe. For example, Allah says:
الْيَوْمَ أُحِلَّ لَكُمُ الطَّيِّبَاتُ وَطَعَامُ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ حِلٌّ لَكُمْ
the translation of which is: “Today all good things have been made halal for you – the food of those given the Book is halal for you…” There are two things you should note about this aya. First Allah uses the word tayyibaat to describe the food of the people of the Book, the same word he forbade us from making haram in the aya we mentioned earlier. And second, He uses the word uhilla which means to make halal. Qadi Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi discusses this aya extensively in his book Ahkam al-Quran and in the course of his discussion says that it does not matter whether they sacrifice the animal to Allah or not, so long as they are Jews or Christians and they slaughter it properly, its meat is halal for us. Qadi Abu Bakr narrates that Imam Malik said,
تؤكل ذبائحُهم المطلقة إلا ما ذبحوا يومَ عيدهم أو لأنصابهم
“Absolutely all their sacrifices may be eaten except for what they sacrifice for their religious holidays or sacrifice to their idols.”
And that Imam ash-Shafi’i said,
تؤكل ذبائحهم وإن ذُكِر غيرُ الله عليها
“Their sacrifices may even be eaten when a name other than that of Allah’s is mentioned over them.” So, all of their food is halal for us, except for what Allah has expressly forbidden us such as pigs, blood, and animals which have died on their own or been strangled or killed by a blunt instrument. This is the position of many of the great a’imma and was that of the Prophet who himself ate the meat of the Jews without questioning them as to how they slaughtered it. So what is halal and what is haram is not as black and white as those who issue the certificates would have us believe.
The second problem with halal certification is the fact that companies have to pay for it and then pass on those costs to their customers. So it has, in effect, become a tax that takes money from the pocket of the ordinary Muslim and puts it into the coffers of the Islamic organisations and ulama. Go into the supermarket and you will find that food not marked halal is cheaper than its halal counterpart. So Muslims are at a disadvantage in the market place as a result.
Thirdly, it is not just customers who have suffered financially as a result of halal certification, but also many small Muslim businesses. Before the halal stamp became widespread, most Muslims used to purchase their meat from their local halal butcher. But, since the advent of the stamp, the supermarkets, most non-Muslim owned and run, have stolen the majority of those butchers’ customers by setting up halal sections and undercutting them, thus cornering the market and driving them out of business.
Fourthly, it leads to a culture of distrust where a printed stamp becomes more valuable than a Muslim’s word. It is no longer enough for him to tell you, face to face, that the meat he serves in his restaurant is halal, you require him to prove it by showing the certificate. And that, despite the fact that we are even forbidden from asking Christians and Jews where the food they are serving comes from when they invite us to eat with them, let alone Muslims. When the Prophet was given the poisoned sheep to eat by the Jews of Khaybar after he had defeated them, he did not ask them about where the meat had come from and would have eaten it were it not for the fact that the meat itself told him that it was poisoned. A community without trust is one that is weak and divided.
Fifthly, while the majority of the ‘ulama affiliated to the organisations that grant these certificates may well be scrupulous, honourable and honest, there is a tremendous potential for excess and abuse. And the fact that they are ‘ulama does not make them proof against that, for knowledge is no barrier to corruption, as was known by the Muslim societies of the past which used to guard against the corruption of their qadis by paying them huge salaries so that they would feel no need to accept bribes. But today there is no one to pay them but themselves, and no one to govern them but themselves, and so the temptation to line their pockets must be huge. And no matter how scrupulous the current crop of ‘ulama, the door will always be open for other unscrupulous people to take advantage. And, indeed, this has already happened in other parts of the world where multinational organisations have succeeded in obtaining halal stamps for products that were later discovered to not be halal at all. And it has happened to a certain extent right here in South Africa where we find halal stamps being sold to put on products such as water and black pepper. Such stamps can have no purpose except to make money for the ones who issue them and are clearly a misuse of the system. May Allah guide us all back to the sawab.
أقول قولي هذا و أستغفر الله لي و لكم و لسائر المسلمين من كل ذنب فاستغفروه إنه هو الغفور الرَّحيم.الحمد لله الحمد لله رب العالمين، وأشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له وأشهد أن محمداً عبده ورسوله، صلى الله وسلم وبارك عليه وعلى آله وصحبه، والتابعين وتابعي التابعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين.
أما بعد! فيأيها الذين ءامنوا اتقوا الله ما استطعتم واسمعوا وأطيعوا وأنفقوا خيرا لأنفسكم. يا عباد الله أوصيكم وإياي بتقوى الله وطاعته وأحذركم وإياي عن معصيته ومخالفته.
The halal stamp was originally developed based upon a system put in place by the Jews to distinguish kosher products from non-kosher ones. And although this may seem to many to simply be an example of following one of their better ideas, the drawbacks of certification that we have mentioned seem to suggest otherwise. And, indeed the Messenger of Allah warned us against following them or the Christians saying,
لتَتبِعَنَّ سُنَن مَن قبلَكم شِبرا بشِبر، وذِراعا بذراع، حتى لو سلكوا جُحرَ ضَبٍّ لسلكتُمُوه فقلنا: يا رسول الله اليهودُ والنصارى؟ قال فمن؟
“You will follow the practices of those who came before you, inch by inch and cubit by cubit until even were they to enter a lizard’s hole, you would follow them.” We said, “Messenger of Allah! (Do you mean) the Jews and Christians?” He replied, “Who else?” And Allah gives us an even stronger warning in the Qur’an when He says:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آَمَنُوا إِنْ تُطِيعُوا فَرِيقًا مِنَ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ يَرُدُّوكُمْ بَعْدَ إِيمَانِكُمْ كَافِرِينَ
the translation of which is, “You who believe! if you obey a group of those given the Book, they will make you revert to being kafir after you have had iman.” No matter how good or sensible their practices may seem, they will inevitably bring us down and not raise us up.
Another major problem with halal certification – and indeed the halal industry as a whole – is that it focusses purely upon the mechanics of slaughter and preparation and does not take into account what should be fundamental when declaring something halal. Allah says:
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ كُلُوا مِمَّا فِي الْأَرْضِ حَلَالًا طَيِّبًا
the translation of which is, “Mankind! eat what is halal and good on the earth.” The food that we eat must be wholesome and good as well as halal – the animals should have been treated well and with mercy (for the Prophet was sent as a mercy to all the worlds, including animals and the environment), not living their entire lives stuffed in small cages as is the case with many chickens and not bought and sold with the proceeds of ribaa and exploitation.
But perhaps the worst thing about halal certification is that it distracts the ‘ulama and the general Muslim populace from more important elements of the deen. It is as if the deen of Allah has been reduced to food – the sole thing that distinguishes us from our non-Muslim counterparts is that what we put into our bellies bears a halal sticker. Is that really all that the deen is about and is that what our ‘ulama should be spending all their time and energy discussing and arguing about? In Cape Town, a city where at least a quarter or a third of the population is Muslim, how can the impact of the Shari‘a be limited to halal stickers on food. Should not at least an equal amount of effort be expended to make all the other aspects of our lives halal as well? Why do we not question the kuffar based ethos when it comes to finance and currency? We should not be trying to carve ourselves a comfortable niche in society where we can cocoon ourselves from what is going on around us – so long as we have our halal meat and our mosques we are okay. No, the message of the deen is universal. The Messenger of Allah was sent to all of mankind wherever they are. We have no more right to Islam than those around us and so we are honour-bound and duty-bound to tell them about it and call them to it. We must show them its superiority in all walks of life, not spend all our time and effort cutting ourselves off from them and isolating ourselves in ghettoes. And our ‘ulama must take the lead in this – they must step up and deal with the issues and problems that plague South Africa today. They must start acting like true inheritors of the Prophets, for the Messenger of Allah has said,
العلماءُ وَرَثة الأنبياء
“The ‘ulama are the inheritors of the Prophets,” and must start putting their knowledge into action. And we must, every one of us, do the same. We ask Allah to protect our ‘ulama and increase them in knowledge and right action. We ask Him to reward them for their efforts and grant them and us the success to do what is best for His deen. We ask Him to make everything in our lives pure and halal and keep us away from everything that is impure and haram. We ask Him to grant us discrimination and increase the trust and brotherhood among the Muslim umma. We ask Him to guide the people of Cape Town and South Africa to Islam and establish the deen here in its full glory and entirety. And we ask Him to purify our intentions until everything we do is for Him and for Him alone.
إنَّ اللهَ ومَلائِكَتَهُ يُصلُّونَ على النَّبِي يَا أَيُها الذينَ آمنوا صَلُّوا عَلَيْهِ وسَلِّمُوا تَسْليماً. اللهمَّ صَلِّ وسَلِّم وبارِك عَلَيْهِ وعلى آلِهِ وصَحْبِهِ أجمعين.
وارض اللهم عن الخلفاء الراشدين أبي بكرٍ وعمرَ وعثمانَ وعلي ، وعن سائر الصحابة أجمعين، خصوصا الأنصارَ منهم والمهاجرين، وعن التابعين وتابعي التابعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين.
اللهم اهد ولاة أمور المسلمين لما يرضيك ولاتباع سنة نبيك صلى الله عليه وسلم وثبت أقدامهم على الصراط المستقيم وأصلحهم يا رب العالمين.
اللهم بارك على شيخنا، و على أميرنا، وعلى جميع أمراءِ وزعماء المسلمين.
اللهم بارك على المسلمين في هذه المدينة ووفقهم لما تحبه وترضاه يا أكرم الأكرمين.
اللهمّ أَعِزَّ الْلإسلامَ والمُسِلمينَ (3) واَخْذُلِ الكُفْرَ والكافِرينَ، وانْصُرِ المُجاهِدينَ في سَبِيلِ اللهِ. واجْعَلْ كَلِمََتَكَ هِيَ العُلْيَا وكَلِمَةَ الكُفْرِ هِيَ السُّفْلى.
ربنا ءاتنا في الدنيا حسنة وفي الأخرة حسنة وقنا عذاب النار.
اللهم لا تضعْ في مقامِنا هذا ذنبا إلا غفرْتَه، ولا عيبا إلا سترْتَه، ولا مريضا إلا شفيتَهُ وعافيتَه، ولا مسجونا إلا طلَّقْتَ سراحَه، ولا مسافرا في برِّك وبحرِك إلا سلِمتَهُ وغنِمْتَه.
إن الله يأمر بالعدل والإحسان وإيتاء ذي القربى وينهى عَنِ الفحشاءِ والمُنكَرِ والبغي، يعظكم لعلكم تذكرون، ولَذِكْرُ اللهِ أكبر والله يَعْلَمُ ما تَصْنَعُون. وقُومُوا إِلَى صَلاتِكُمْ يرحمكم الله